Surface pen no longer able to highlight the article

I totally agree. It makes no sense to me that there are not more options in the settings for the Surface Pen. At least let me decide what I want to do with this $100 device. Seriously!

Greg,

Thanks for informing us as to what has likely happened to our formerly simple drag and highlight with ease feature.  So my question is, before going back to the former version of Windows 10 (as Bzzank and Aloha1998 have both done to undo OUR problem), do you know of any fixes to the Fall Creators update (or version) that will make possible the elimination of having to "depress and hold" the surface pen button every time we want to highlight an article that is not in OneNote or other MS program?  

I hate to do the reset to previous version and find out that the problem is solved a week or two later by another update or "fix".

Thanks for any insight you can provide.

Hi Swee,

I think what you are seeing are some Pen interaction improvements that were made in the Fall Creators update. 

**Scrolling with pen.**In the effort to create a more intuitive pen interaction on Windows, we are emphasizing natural and direct manipulation of content with pen. You don’t have to “hunt and peck” for scrollbars or frequently switch between pen and touch when navigating; now you can scroll content directly and fluently as you would with your finger.

**Selection with pen.**We also revised selection with pen by giving it more control over the selection process. Not only are we showing selection grippers whenever text is selected via pen, but also are allowing for a consistent and fast selection of content – text, objects, or ink—by dragging the pen while the barrel button is pressed.

For example, if you are in Edge or a Store app you can now select text by quickly double tapping a word and then dragging the selection grippers to adjust the words highlighted OR you can press and hold the pen's barrel button while you highlight the desired text.

Hope this helps,

Greg

That is an 'improvement'??? Making something that was very easy more difficult? I'm really sorry I bought this instead of an iPad...

In reply to Greg [MSFT]'s post on November 13, 2017

Hi Swee,

I think what you are seeing are some Pen interaction improvements that were made in the Fall Creators update. 

Scrolling with pen. In the effort to create a more intuitive pen interaction on Windows, we are emphasizing natural and direct manipulation of content with pen. You don’t have to “hunt and peck” for scrollbars or frequently switch between pen and touch when navigating; now you can scroll content directly and fluently as you would with your finger.

Selection with pen. We also revised selection with pen by giving it more control over the selection process. Not only are we showing selection grippers whenever text is selected via pen, but also are allowing for a consistent and fast selection of content – text, objects, or ink—by dragging the pen while the barrel button is pressed.

For example, if you are in Edge or a Store app you can now select text by quickly double tapping a word and then dragging the selection grippers to adjust the words highlighted OR you can press and hold the pen's barrel button while you highlight the desired text.

Hope this helps,

Greg

I also am not alright with this solution.  I want it to go back to underlining without having to press the button.  This kind of functionality change is not like using regular pen and paper for highlighting.  Additionally, it is rather awkward to use it this way.  Please restore the original functionality of highlighting without pressing the button.  This "improved" way is not "improved" at all and is akin to saying "We're not going to use the left mouse button for clicking anymore.  Rather it will be used to trigger the Start button."

Not cool.